CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

college at Chapultepec, for example). We must also recognise different understandings
of childhood/adulthood in previous eras as indeed we must note ethno-cultural
differences when casting moral accusations today. The issue today, though, (even
accounting for differing cultural interpretations of majority) is one of widespread and
systematic drawing into conflict of children far too young to understand their actions in
anything but the most basic ways. Wars in Africa, especially but not exclusively, have
been marked by the massive rise in deliberate use of child soldiers.
HRW estimate that there are more than 300,000 children being used as soldiers in more
than 30 ongoing conflicts. 163 They are recruited because they are innocent,
impressionable and easily manipulated by threats of violence. In the circumstances
persisting in many failed or failing states, where extremes of poverty are the norm,
where family and social structures have collapsed and violence is widespread, children
are easy-pickings for militias and warlords in particular (though in some cases they are
used by government forces, too). Herfried Münkler argues that ‘the combination of
structural unemployment and the disproportionately high representation of young
people in the total population who are largely excluded from the peace economy’ 164 is a
key driver in new wars.
(E)xclusion from regular economic activity, their hunger and their lack of
peacetime social prospects automatically drive them into the arms of the warring
parties. Under these conditions war represents not only an opportunity to secure
their physical survival, but also a way of achieving social recognition that would
never be accorded them if they did not have a gun in their hand. 165
It should not really come as a surprise then, that few if any of these young fighters seek
or welcome an end to hostilities or their own ‘rescue’ from them. First hand experience
of child soldiers in Sierra Leone led Major Jim Gray to conclude that it was a mistake to
assume that they were eager to return home. On the contrary he never encountered one
who wanted to do so. 166 Membership of armed gangs provides for basic needs but also
offers status and social belonging. Beyond that the warlords have developed effective
means of isolation to ensure return to their communities is all but impossible for the
child soldiers:
Fighting groups have developed brutal and sophisticated techniques to separate
and isolate children from their communities. Children are often terrorized into
obedience, consistently made to fear for their lives and well-being. They quickly
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